Exercising is well known as a basic need for maintaining a healthy life. A recent trend in fitness is known as functional training. This type of training allows an individual to grasp one or more handles of an exercise machine and press or pull in a motion defined by the user. This motion can reproduce sport specific movements of an athlete or reproduce everyday movements of an individual. User defined movements with resistance will engage numerous stabilizer and major muscles and help an individual achieve total body strength conditioning and overall better health.
Exercise machines called functional trainers have been developed wherein two adjustable arm assemblies can be selectively positioned to accommodate the users preferred point of engagement with a handle or other type of attachment that can be connected to a cable end and be pressed or pulled. Each adjustable arm assembly has one cable end that is interconnected with a weight stack. This cable end typically exits and is routed over at least one pulley at the adjustable arm assembly's distal end. This pulley at the distal end of the adjustable arm assembly is typically pivotally attached to allow the handle to be pressed or pulled in multiple planes. The ability to press or pull in multiple planes and to engage a handle in selectively different starting positions accommodates different sized users with different flexibilities and different training goals.
Typically, one weight stack provides the resistance for these functional trainers. The cable end of the first adjustable arm assembly and the cable end of the second adjustable arm assembly are connected to the weight stack. The two cable ends of some functional trainers are interconnected with the weight stack wherein a 4 to 1 mechanical advantage is provided to the user when one cable end is pressed or pulled. For example, if the functional trainer has a 200 lb weight stack, pressing or pulling one cable end will provide 50 lbs of resistance. This is an advantage because the cable end can be pressed or pulled a long distance before the top of the weight stack will run out of upward travel distance. This allows the user to perform many functional training exercises that require long distance pressing or pulling and light weight resistance. This is a disadvantage if the user wants to perform strength training exercises that require shorter distance pressing or pulling and heavier weight resistance. A functional trainer could be made with a heavier weight stack such as 400 lbs but this would greatly increase the cost of the exercise machine.
The two cable ends of some functional trainers are interconnected with the weight stack wherein a 2 to 1 mechanical advantage is provided to the user when one cable end is pressed or pulled. For example, if the functional trainer has a 200 lb weight stack, pressing or pulling one cable end will provide 100 lbs of resistance. This 2 to 1 mechanical advantage does not allow as much cable end travel as the 4 to 1 mechanical advantage does because of the exercise machine height restrictions of the upward travel of the weight stack. The 2 to 1 ratio is an advantage if the user wants to perform strength training exercises that require shorter distance pressing or pulling and heavier weight resistance. The 2 to 1 ratio is a disadvantage if the user wants to perform some functional training exercises that require long distance pressing or pulling and light weight resistance.
Having a separate exercise machine for lighter weight functional training and a separate exercise machine for heavier weight strength training would be to costly and require too much room to house the equipment. Also, manufacturing an exercise machine that is too tall to allow more cable travel is not practical because of height restrictions. Thus, there is a need for an exercise machine with multi positionable exercise arms that will provide alternate resistance ratios for light weight functional training and heavier weight strength training.